


A Treacherous Memory

by nigellecter



Category: Charlie Countryman (2013)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-02 18:46:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11515254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigellecter/pseuds/nigellecter
Summary: Post-Canon Nigel x Gabi. An ongoing RP thread between me (nigellecter) and firehairedcellist.





	1. Chapter 1

The green cop,  _Petru Vasilescu_ , looks at Nigel’s lifeless body before immediately calling for an ambulance. Hesitantly lowering himself as he grabs the man’s bent left leg, he silently sighed in relief when he found out that the uncomfortably contorted leg hadn’t dislocated nor broken. Sighing with both regret and relief, Petru immediately accesses the unconscious man, tall and broad, with compacted muscles. The blaring sound of hydroelectric dam merely becoming the white noise, once illuminating and spotlighting neon sign that says ‘ _Bun Venit la București,_ ’ which had been in the vicinity of his club, once the indication of bustling nightlife fizzes and flickers, the crackling sound erratically emitting before it goes out for good. The strong surge of water splashes water as the sheer force of water drowns out the blaring siren of the  _vehiculele de poliție._

Before the ambulance comes to take Nigel away, the cop checks for a stabilization of the man’s airway and circulation. During his training, he had learned that patients’ mortality increased if they were intubated in the field than in the hospital. He’s more than appalled with the amount of blood, looking black under the full moon fall upon the dense blood, the copper rich tang overwhelming against the late summer dampness of Romania. Watching his own reflection and Nigel’s profile glimmer against the puddle of crimson, Petru checks for Nigel’s pulse on his right hand, which also had been curved upward next to his face. He didn’t notice it before, but there was a faint, but sure smile plastered on the angular complexion, usually sun-kissed face turning pallid as more blood coagulates under Nigel’s ashen locks.

Feeling feeble pulse under his fingertips, Petru’s fingers move to feel the jugular, for sure means of feeling the throbbing heartbeat underneath. Digits gliding on the inked surface as he takes note of the pin-up girl tattoo, slightly raised against the surface. The man must have gotten the tattoo retouched not too long ago. This time, it’s still weak and fluttering, but he’s indeed still alive, which had been just  _extraordinary_. How could one survive this kind of acute and inevitable end of human life, which he had been sure would happen to the man?  **Miraculous**.

Once Nigel’s body gets placed on a gurney, the medical personels try their best to reduce intracranial pressure, since it is the sole and independent predictor to indicate the poor outcome. He has his hopeless moments, the pressure spiking way more than the danger zone and his heart almost stops as weakly beating heart flatlines for a while the flurry of hands move to drain the blood and they hook him and minister hypertonic saline solution through the crook of his elbow, one of his fat veins responding as it bounces under the fingertip.

And thankfully, once the ambulance makes to Bucharest Emergency Hospital, Nigel is stable enough, but has to be constantly monitored. No intubation needed, he could breath through his nose with the aid of oxygen mask and the small .22 caliber had been through and through and it wasn’t necessary to have a surgical operation on his brain. Induced in a coma, except atrophy of his muscles and slow recovery of his motor skills, the neurologists called it a _phenomenon_ , writing many scholarly articles about Nigel’s swift recovery, a mere nineteen days.   


Briefly noticing that his prominent and distorted edge of the gash all cleaned and stitches taken out, more tingling sensation makes his skin itch, the back of his head close to hairless as he feels the stubble graze against the wrapped bandages as his head sinks more into the pillow. Before Nigel hears the nurse change the intravenous fluid bags on the pole to correct his electrolyte imbalances and to maintain his pressure, he’s teetering over the edge, between the realm of awareness and oblivion. 

His fingers, limp against the sterilized and clean sheets, his thumb imperceptibly brushes against the tube. He’s vaguely perceivant of the identification band around his wrist and incessant sound of the vital machine beeping too close against his head. Nigel Lecter, born in twenty-second of November, about to turn forty-three. The light in the room too invasive and dazzlingly bright against his corneas as he slips into a deep slumber once again. 

___

**Pure agony and despair**. That was all she could feel the moment she saw the comatose state of her husband. Utter hysteria following before the doctors quickly told her that she had to calm down or else they would be forced to kick her out. _Your are to blame. This is_ ** _your_  ** _fault_. Her fault that they were here and he was fighting for his life. Guns, fists and knives could only scar so much and while they were visible all over his they would never amount to the ones that she’d catalyzed within him.

Her composure was quickly retained and subdued to mere sobs. Sobs which would revert back to pitiful wails and pain and agony once she got back home. To _their_  home. It was time to woman up, to take responsibility for the possibility that the love was her life would forever be in a coma until she decided it was time to pull the plug. No longer was she a young and innocent little girl. She was tainted by the decisions and actions she’d taken in life. Her husband’s potential death in her hands for it might as well have been her who had pulled the trigger. 

**Mistake** , the biggest mistake she’d ever made in her fucking life.  _I belong with Nigel._ That’s what she had told him, Charlie, the young American man that thought that perhaps he could change that truth. He couldn’t, it was true and as hard as the pill was to swallow that she’d ruined the good thing she had going it was what she had to do. For  _his_  sake, for  _her_  own sake… for everyone’s sake whom gotten hurt all because of her deceptive choices. A brief moment of second guessing on her part and look at all the destruction that followed. She loathed herself for that. Doubting what was real and trying to find it where it was fake. 

It was she who pulled the trigger the moment she left him and implied that she was no longer in love with him. Her actions by all account  **egregious** and the idea that love would prevail faulty at best. Whatever she had felt for Charlie was simply childish curiosity of wanting to see what else was out there. Nothing was out there as she had hastily learned. A brief and mentally constructed infatuation that dispersed as quickly as it materialized. Who was the monster now? Her father had often called him that, a beast with nothing but cruel intentions. It pained her to think it but he had it all wrong.  **She** was the monster he so often told warned her about when she was a little girl. He never warned her that sometimes the monster could be in your very  _own_  reflection. 

All she could do now was hope and pray that some higher authority did not **punish** him any further. Anything, she would do anything to  **repent** for her transgressions. Would he forgive her if he did awake one day? The thought would haunt as three grueling weeks passed. 


	2. Chapter 2

His mind is racing, yet the salt drips linger upon the empty lips behind the steamed oxygen mask without the residing soul behind it. Across the chasm of that very intensive care unit he lays, that incessant beeping, along with the blue-gray of Gabi’s eyes and immaculate ambiance of the blinding white walls are what devours him. For that moment, all the lost, wandering and lonely soul of his finds back the way back to reality as he valiantly fights through the darkness, which had been quietly observing upon his strewn limbs and woeful sorrowness that drowned him whole. 

His willpower was a wretched thing; he  _tumultuously_  feels, experiences jabbing and incinerating pain sweeping like a whirl of all-consuming wildfire and feels the adamant grasp of the temptation through every inch of his pulsing veins. How easy it would be, for him to slip into that other side where no more of his hurricane, chaos and storm resided and for him to accept that fostered submission, along with the change of his heart? Futilely quenching his resounding thirst with an invisible swallow as his adam’s apple slowly sinks, the burn is even more so aggravated by the gravelly sensation lingering inside his throat, along with a hint of copper. He might cough up a tight elongated cylinder of concentrated heat, along with the whirl of smoke from the pit of his core as the torchlight extinguishes. 

Eyes slipped shut, barely perceiving the world as he drags his uncooperative limbs as the ground beneath him turns into a sinking swamp, the mind continues to whirl and slowly spin like clockwork. A corroded and unused, the ratchet loose and hanging for the life of the existence. Like a music box’s notes trailing away into the thin air until it halts for good as his wax lyricism, consumed with words and its reserved dedication dies along with it. In the face of the most exquisite suffering, his mind still laces with her lavish bedazzlement of fallen droplets of condensed tears. 

The flaying thread hangs suspended in the air, seeping strength and vigor and his utmost concentration along with it. Like a dwindling voice fading into the grandiosity of the dance floor, like walking on the teetering edge between the stark awareness and bottomless oblivion. The puppeteer’s string threading into the fibers of his muscles, taking an absolute control as his own, in return, relinquishes as heavy drops of mercury weighs his appendages down. The sensation engulfs him beyond an euphoria. He dreams over and over, the preserved moment and every semblance of the whoosh as he fell, the clatter of his fragmented heart in sure silence, yet the potent dynamism of that powerful act had shattered his life. 

So one day, the whipping wind stirs within him on the dawn of his birthday, the sky still glistens with the fading stars and the world continues to watch his recurrent recovery.  ****Taut V of his muscles easing as he bathes in a pool of his sweat and scents of his tanned flesh burning with the body’s defense, he floats among the vortex as invisible lashes pinch against the sensitive skin, as his half-lidded hazel makes an effort to gaze in the distance and sees a slanting ray spilling forth the narrow slit of the curtained windows. Just a crack of daybreak and like a preserved flower, gradually retaining his intensity as fingers curl, delicate, perfectly intact and frozen memories encased along his fingertips.

___

With the medical bills piling up she didn’t have many options. But she wasn’t going to touch any of Nigel’s money. Thus, she put her cello aside and once again began bartending. She made good tips, and seeing as she was working whenever she wasn’t in the hospital with him, the money was coming fast. Faster than she expected it to but there was still a lot that had to be covered. She wasn’t complaining. Almost successfully keeping a bright face and attitude when needed - the perfect guise so no one would suspect anything was awry. Everything was tainted and stained with her mistakes and selfishness. Testing the undying love of her husband because of her youthful indecision. It had to be the biggest error of her life. Now she had a true sense of the term rude awakening. As his next of kin there a few things she had to do. Not just provide for him medically but make sure none of his foes got word of his current condition or more specifically his location. Bribery was the most efficient way to do so especially to those whom owed Nigel their lives. It wasn’t hard convincing or at least not as hard as she expected it to be. As soon as she mentioned her name everything seemed to click in their heads. If Nigel did survive and they didn’t obey her orders then her forced free labor would be the least of their worries. Fear, it was funny how effective it was. Just like how funny it was to see her now. Even her wardrobe had changed when she wasn’t working at the club. Anything that he ever seemed to dislike her wearing was set aside to collect dust and lose coloring. She was likely to be a young widow or a much more submissive wife depending on the turn of events happened. The slightest of decisions of their effects could change your take on life so deeply. She knew that now without fail.

Days, and weeks past before it became months. She didn’t keep count but the bills did their job of keeping her mind on the present. Alas, that didn’t make her cry any less. Now all that came was the salty liquid as she listened the sound of his heart beating in a stable rhythm. Time seemed to be in a standstill and yet forget about them both, bury them below their large carpet where anyone else was also left and abandoned. If Nigel could see her now. Despite dressing in the lavish dresses he’d purchased for her there was a thick sadness within her. Regretful and egregious melancholy mixed with acceptance and self deprecating loathe. A part of her hoped he’d spit at her the words that he needed to get off of his chest whether he wanted to say them or not. It was the only sincere way for them to move on if reconciliation was possible that was. Whether it was she truly did not know. For once in her life, when it came to the most beautiful man she’d ever rested her eyes upon she didn’t know what to think or what to expect what would happen when he awoke. What he had amnesia? That was possible with all the trauma he’d been through was it not? Gabi didn’t want that though. The sooner they resolved or said what needed to be said the better. On the day of his birthday she stayed awake all the previous night to make sure she made his hospital room more homey. Several of his favorite pieces furniture, art, alcohol even books were placed in their appropriate areas. Just like he had them placed in their home. Once she finished, she pulled out a small pastry she’d baked at home, his favorite, still warm thanks to the cooking bunsen burner she had. Placing it on a tray, she keep a fork beside it as if he were to smell it and wake up out of nowhere. Little did she know that her spouse was going to wake up for some reason or another. 


	3. Chapter 3

Submerged beneath the rippling iridescent  **gossamer**   **veil** , it’s his _safe haven_ \- even without the strokes of his own making, smeared upon the porous walls of the club. Nothing a cloudy mystic whirl of  _obscurity_  and  _bombardment_  of blazing halos and radioactive stream of technicolor wouldn’t solve. The **time warps** and the evanescence manifests upon the stampede of zealous individuals, along with copious amount of confessions from his part. The waltzing of  **stolen breaths** , thrumming  _palpitations_ , quivering flesh and sweet exquisite release of deadened nerves paint over the ceiling like a sand painting. With each threatening press of his heart, the grains swirl and hurtle across the ambiance as a lost cause. Those  **technicolor**  full of walls become a  _mirage_ , a series of hallucinations with crushingly empty rooms, barren corridors and entirely absent of such projections of people. 

And his sempiternal stretch of  _daydreams_  and  _nightmares_ , he’s drowning further in the fatalism of his reality. It doesn’t stop him from wallowing in the pain of heartache nor demons in his mind to sit on his shoulder, whisper the words of oblivion and limbo as wounds fail to heal. He’s  **hollowed out** , a  _vacuous_  gaze shooting out with no purpose. The grandeur of the tree, of its sap drained as the lush green and its pungent scent of vitality drains out.  **A carapace without its thriving host.** Yet, that very emptiness swells his incessant thoughts, continuously singing its stanzas and rhythms through his broken heart. He wouldn’t sing a devastating suicidal requiem again in his  _stifled pain_  and _murmured comfort_.

An invisible shackle placed around his appendages as his spine tingles with atrophic  **tenseness** , the  _petrification_  accelerates his tattered and worn form to reduce into a heap of frailty. Something like a wretched  **liberation**  being obtuse. His eardrums ring with countless  _reverberations_  of electric sparks going off, as if the amplified amps had been sending invisible, yet potent series of  **surging currents**  next to him without all the ear-splitting strident. It’s enough to  _suffocate_  all the other sensations around the whitewashed walls, drowning with bleak darkness and equal dreary muffy scent continuing to entrap them into their own worlds.  **Fear** , **hate**  and  **disgust**  towards the concept hadn’t rang so clear since he’d bent himself broken and heard the water running in the distance. 

_For he had been separated into the multitudes of panes of his body, to be bent and broken for what?_ He fears his body would solder and harden, yet his psyche would become ever so brittle and reduce further down to ashes with another rush of  **desolate fire.** Hisconsciousinstinctively **withdraws** , the invisible lump that had been growing in mid-exhale dissipates something akin to an efficacious elixir. He could feel every chord stand up and vibrate with brewing  _alacrity_ ; he could effortlessly visualize the glittering images of their conjoined bodies, as he stares fixedly at the blazing fire blossoming and faint bloom of petals falling beneath his feet like splattered blood. The final moment of the man serving as a harbinger of something more great.

With a petrified, broken and septic heart clutched close to the chambers of his prison, Clammy palms elicit an  **imperceptible**  twitch, the slightest of a movement. Spilled defeat and desolate gloom continues to drench him whole in undulating waves, waves after waves, as frozen façade eases in an expression of shattered coldness. There’s no  _marvel_  nor a feeling of  _triumph_ , for he could still feel the path of thorns of his affliction; its prick on his skin, nevertheless the bleeding as it became indelible ink of his **quixotic love.**  The confines of the hospital room dwells with familiar presence as haloes of amorphous shapes slowly clarify and he’s immediately bombarded with bedazzled blindness - and he’s forced, yet again to shut his eyes, as  _gravelled_ parchness licks through his esophagus, making him to hack. 

___

Above. Above the surface where everything hardly seemed to change with the tides. Above where she had the high road and he the low. Above where he’d be able to see her. In her own personal  _hell_  waiting for him to come back to her. Back to whatever was left of the broken pieces. Once a well oiled machine there was only bits scattered all over. What they were before, now a distant memory. An ebony abyss claimed the segments of their lives together. Heart shattered but more for Nigel than herself. Although she hated herself for everything she’d done to him she felt agony for everything he went through and would go through. In many ways he was more fragile than she ever was. Because he had more to lose… and he’d nearly lost it all.  _That’s_  where the young wife found herself.

The thought of losing him permanently was a part of her now. Even when she visited him it floated around her like a cloud of resentment towards herself. Sometimes she’d give him baths instead of the nurses. Not because it meant anything more then a wife taking care of her husband but because sometimes she felt like he was listening for her. Waiting to smell her perfume or the touch of her skin against his own. She didn’t know how else to use her words. What else to say to justify herself, to make herself clear to him. Hell, he wasn’t even fully conscious but it felt like he was judging her, staring at her like a foe as opposed to his biggest friend in the world. He once looked at her like she held all the meaning that the world would ever have. Gabriela didn’t know if she could handle that, the look in his eye that didn’t hold love for her. Desperation…. that’s what she’d feel.

She wasn’t sure who she’d give the pastry to. Perhaps one of the kids in the pediatric section of the hospital. The little ones needed something to make them smile. If not she’d definitely come by later on and brings cupcakes. The nurses would give her a headcount. She didn’t want anyone to feel excluded. This would help her keep her mind off of the present. Just for a short while. Sometimes distractions were all she had. Like a split personality whose sole purpose was to keep your mind off things. Self criticism was the toughest when you were surrounded by nothing but silence. She should’ve shot Charlie when she had the chance. She should’ve listened to her instincts and not her impulse. Her betrayal must’ve been like venom to him. The purest toxins known to man being unbeknownst to him into his blood stream with painful patience. 

Her eyes. They always gave her emotions away. Especially to someone who could read them. Micro expressions and body language experts. Some had certificates to prove their expertise while others had lives which caused them to be well versed in such science. The sound of the heart monitor rose ever so slightly causing for her to gasp. Even if the thought of Nigel walking up one day ran through her mind it didn’t mean that she was prepared for that day to come. No, she would never be ready for what would happen next. Regardless of outcome she’d see the world in a much more realistic light. Now she was actually grown up. Actually a woman just playing pretend. But why was tragedy the solution? After everything that had happened she would likely be seen as a nuisance to him. Merely a face that he used to know.

Facing him, she visibly trembled as she rose her eyes to look at him. A part of her could just imagine him holding the gun right to her face, eyes glaring at her with nothing but disgust. Instead his eyes closed the moment she looked at him, the look of a dry throat clear on his face. “Nurse!” She calls out, asking for them to offer him water. It was better they did lest she didn’t want him to reject it if it were hear serving it to him.


	4. Chapter 4

Shadows uncoil, his plump and sweet heart breached by the dripping ray of  _illumination_  that would sever through the weakened muscle layers. How his lips drop blood like he would of gasoline - **bitterly compelling** , whispering power into his tongue, yet his heart continues to bleed, for the problems continue to swell into the deep void, and those seemingly infinite seconds stretch further and further as sunshine continues to burn, through his lingering thoughts as they set aflame beneath this glorious day of his resurgence, of his awakening. He had turned into a  **silhouette** of who he used to be; for his skin had worn thin, stained with  **bruises** , imperceptible beneath his slightly washed-away  _pallidness_  as he still latches onto every bit of hue turning dry on rough white canvas walls that had him trapped inside. More like the spilled blood on snow, as  _cyanide_  drips from his lips as it did of his forlorn sadness. The  **bittersweet poison**  which had killed him slowly with the words he never dared to utter. 

From that little surefire spark Gabi had sent through his smallness, his heart expanded from its  **adamantine cage** , collapsing as well; the heat from rage, the cold from sadness, all the other intricacies of propellent and poignant emotions that never quite connected on road. How she had sent him sprawling and spiralling out in all directions, his  _matters_  and  _morals_  flying in all directions. The science of what once created them became of him. How she shattered his entirety, broken him into what he seemingly deserved and expected. Nevertheless, he would become the **unfathomable galaxy** that makes up life - for he had been divine, but only because he was without her, despite a weight he had chosen to take on, shoulders struggling from what he carries, knees buckling over with each step taken. 

How minutes pass by hours, for extra sensitive stimulation reverberating through his inner cranium aggravates even further as he couldn’t tell which started or ended. He hazards a glance towards the unfamiliar sea of faces - for his remarkable case had made a headline and even the glimpse through his seemingly  **handsome** ,  **rugged** face that had gone through such remarkable battle was enough for all the medical professionals to choke on their words and feelings. Yet, it’s never the same thing twice for him - that  _emptiness_  he never thought he’d feel. What is love, but something _heavy, tedious, everlasting_ , yet he would never grow exhausted as long as he could handle it. For him to cross over the realm and walk on over; despite the  **severed**  and **broken wires**  in the stoplight as seemingly distant voices break through the booming, deafening silence. 

Through the teetering moments of clarity and devastation, he feels the chipping fragments file away from the cavern where rabid sandstorm continues to beat. Through the terrification of coming full to his senses, he still greets the unknown with a sparkle beneath his hazel;  **magnificently beautiful,**   _so fucking tragic, fucked up, celestial, hellish_  and  _romantic_. Happy and gruesome and every other word that could possibly describe the human experience one can go through as  **Nigel Lecter** \- for he’s here to travel up and down the  _emotional spectrum,_  for his soul to stretch the bounds of infinity as dozens of souls wander aimlessly into his periphery. Dozens that he would feel compelled to cut them off from the perception of his boundary. And inevitably, he’ll carefully serve it to them on a silver platter as his senses sleepwalk through the bustling atmosphere and he fights, the resounding urge to simply detonate and explode, but his energy isn’t too artfully cut into manageable wedges, to propel and fuel as his aura would swirl and dissolve, with the dark hues of painted clouds and halcyon dreams. 

The universe remains encapsulated, as quenching coolness dissipates the pinched brows, as well as the need to rip himself off from all the contraptions that confine him in the immaculate bed. “I thought you were gone  _forever_ ,” though his heart served him through the best of intentions, the  **dichotomy**  of his dissected love proves to be like drug; addictive in nature regardless of whether this love is _life-enhancing_ or  _destructive_. How his heart entirely depends on this neurochemical exchange; of its give and take. How he would blissfully float in seventh heaven, only to plummet like Icarus drowning without ever perceiving how flimsy his wings had been. His heart riots against the  **sensibilities**  and **logical explanation** of his mind, despite his drooping head; onslaught of torpor still governing every inch of his form as he is rendered to be like discarded shadows, upon the blazing past; a wildfire snuffed beneath the familiar smoldering crimson. “I thought I would become the fucking perpetuity of snuffed fire beneath the kiss of rain.” 

___

Her initial reaction must’ve come off as withdrawn. It wasn’t meant to come off that way. She was just… shocked and unsure how to feel, how to react. It terrified her not knowing how  **he’d**  react. She’d seen him at his best and his worst. Lord have mercy on her if she’d already stepped on the engulfing flames of his wrath. Because if she had then there truly was no other place she was going other than a wooden box six feet under. Then again with his history she wouldn’t let it passed him that he’d let her corpse rot somewhere after lord knows what he’d do to her. Torment her… just as she did unintentionally for the passed couple of months. After a couple more moments of staring at him, she realized that this wasn’t the case. Nigel was… forlorn and heartbroken. She wasn’t any better herself. 

The tears fell down from her face and she sighed ever so slowly. “Nigel… Inima mea îţi aparţine….” The young wife sighed to herself. Nights and nights again she’d repeat to herself these words just as she did the moment she realized he’d regained consciousness…. “ Tu ești dragostea mea… Vreau să fii lângă mine ….” over and over again and now he could hear her as the doctors rushed to check up on him. After fifteen minutes it was clear that he was conscious and vitals stable. They spoke to him about his condition and how his strength was the only reason he survived. He was expected to make a full recovery. They also mentioned all of her dedication in coming to see him every single day since he arrived to the hospital. This in particular made her look down in what looked like shame. Shame for not having been this devoted from the beginning. She should’ve held onto him harder when she found out about his…. occupation. There must’ve been some arrangement they could’ve made even then to avoid their separation. Bargaining, she didn’t know how to do that back then. Now, well now she was holding onto a hail Mary that he’d be willing to try again with her. 

“Thank you.” She tells the medical staff as they walked out. Arms suddenly hugging her chest, she felt more exposed than ever. He was looking at her…. she could feel it. It was stupid of her to have said what she said earlier. Not because she didn’t mean it but he was still collecting his thoughts. It probably wasn’t the smartest to say something so intimate right off the bat. So much for coming off as withdrawn. She must’ve come off as desperate - too much right away. Never had she ever been like this. Then again had they ever been in the spot they were in now…. the answer was no. Though they’d gotten close in the past. An awkward silence that told anyone watching that the things that were said and done must’ve been vigorous. Vigorous - now there was a word that described them. Their tumultuous and at time hapless romance was one for the books. Although like most printed stories they would likely were exaggerate or blow out of proportion theirs. They’d likely write them off a Lolita Complex stereotype waiting to happen. That was  **not** what they were. 

What he said, although inclining to make her think that things would turn out for the better for them, she knew that it could’ve been initial delusion? That’s how she’d been during his entire recovery - barely existing as a human but more like a shell. He’d see it, he always saw how she was doing. There was little she could hide from him. That was as much as luxury was it could be a curse.  _Perpetuity of snuffed fired beneath the kiss of rain_ …. even in his weakened state he was as elegant as ever. Moving over to the chair she’d been sitting in her trembling hands rested on it. “I do not know what to say besides…. welcome back.” Gabi says with a weak smile. “And that I am so sorry… for everything. You’re going through all of this because of me, Nigel. I understand if you never want to see me ever again because I do not deserve your patience. I never did. Even when we first met.” Sniffling deeply her eyes slowly look up at him. “But if you allow me…. I’d like to stay until you make a full recovery then I’ll… I’ll leave and never come back.”


End file.
